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“This is Your Brain on Rhetoric”:
Research Directions for Neurorhetorics
a
Jordynn Jack & L. Gregory Appelbaum
b
a
Department of English, University of North Carolina
b
Center for Cognitive, Neuroscience at Duke University
Available online: 15 Nov 2010
To cite this article: Jordynn Jack & L. Gregory Appelbaum (2010): “This is Your Brain on Rhetoric”:
Research Directions for Neurorhetorics, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 40:5, 411-437
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Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 411–437
Rhetoric Society Quarterly 2010.40:411-437. Downloaded from www.tandfonline.com
‘‘This is Your Brain on Rhetoric’’:
Research Directions for Neurorhetorics
Jordynn Jack & L. Gregory Appelbaum
Neuroscience research findings yield fascinating new insights into human cognition and
communication. Rhetoricians may be attracted to neuroscience research that uses imaging tools
(such as fMRI) to draw inferences about rhetorical concepts, such as emotion, reason, or empathy.
Yet this interdisciplinary effort poses challenges to rhetorical scholars. Accordingly, research in
neurorhetorics should be two-sided: not only should researchers question the neuroscience of
rhetoric (the brain functions related to persuasion and argument), but they should also inquire into
the rhetoric of neuroscience (how neuroscience research findings are framed rhetorically). This
two-sided approach can help rhetoric scholars to use neuroscience insights in a responsible manner,
minimizing analytical pitfalls. These two approaches can be combined to examine neuroscience
discussions about methodology, research, and emotion, and studies of autism and empathy, with a
rhetorical as well as scientific lens. Such an approach yields productive insights into rhetoric while
minimizing potential pitfalls of interdisciplinary work.
At a time when cultural critics lament declining popular interest in science,
neuroscience research findings are only gaining in popularity. Highly persuasive
neuroscience-related findings are touted for their potential to transform advertising,
political campaigns, and law (for example, through new brain-based ‘‘lie detectors’’).1
Those hoping to improve their own brains can read self-help books, play ‘‘brain training’’ computer and video games, listen to specially designed meditations, and train
their children’s brains with Baby Einstein, Beethoven for Babies, and similar devices.2
1
For a rhetorical-cultural analysis of brain-based lie detectors, see Littlefield.
2
The scientific evidence for these devices varies considerably. For instance, one 2006 study suggested that
each hour of television or video viewing (regardless of type) was actually associated with a 16.99-point
decrease in MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory CDI score, an indicator of early
language proficiency. See Zimmerman et al.
Jordynn Jack is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of North Carolina, 512
Greenlaw Hall CB#3520, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA. E-mail: jjack@email.unc.edu
L. Gregory Appelbaum is a Post-Doctoral Associate in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University,
Box 90999 LSRC Building, Durham, NC 27708, USA. E-mail: greg@duke.edu
ISSN 0277-3945 (print)/ISSN 1930-322X (online) # 2010 The Rhetoric Society of America
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2010.516303
Jack and Appelbaum
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412
Neuroscientific research findings are reported in mainstream news outlets with
striking regularity. Through scientific and technical developments, researchers can
now track active neural systems and document the relationship between brain
chemistry, human behavior, and mental activities. These undertakings seem to offer
concrete, material proof of concepts previously considered ephemeral, especially
when claims are supported with showy, multicolored brain scan images.3
In rhetorical studies, there seem to be two main approaches to studying this
bourgeoning attention to all things neuro-. One area of study under the rubric
of neurorhetorics might be the rhetoric of neuroscience—inquiry into the
modes, effects, and implications of scientific discourses about the brain. To
take up a recent example, on 3 February 2010, a Reuters news report featured
the following headline: ‘‘Vegetative patient ‘talks’ using brain waves’’
(Kelland). According to reports carried in nearly every major news outlet,
British and Belgian researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to demonstrate that a comatose man was able to think ‘‘yes’’ or
‘‘no,’’ intentionally altering his brain activity to communicate with the
researchers. Newspapers and magazines reprinted the dramatic images of brain
activation that appeared in the original scientific report in the New England
Journal of Medicine, with ‘‘yes’’ answers featuring orange and ‘‘no’’ answers
showing blue spots. The findings immediately prompted debates in popular
venues. As is often the case with widely reported neuroscience findings, this
announcement reinvigorated public arguments about medical care, governmentality, and the politics of life itself. Rhetoric scholars should certainly
pay attention to how scientific appeals function in these debates.
A second approach might be the neuroscience of rhetoric, drawing new insights
into language, persuasion, and communication from neuroscience research. Findings such as this study of noncommunicative patients can prompt us to broaden
our very definitions of rhetoric to include those with impaired communication
(such as autism, aphasia, or ‘‘locked-in syndrome’’), asking how communication
occurs through different means, or how brain differences might influence
communication. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson argues that ‘‘we need an expanded
understanding of rhetoricity as a potential, and a broadened concept of rhetoric
to include collaborative and mediated rhetorics that work with the performative
rhetoric of bodies that ‘speak’ with=out language’’ (157). Surely, cognitive neuroscience findings can play an important role in such an endeavor. Neuroscience
findings might also add new insights to longstanding rhetorical issues, such as
the relationship between pathos and logos, or emotion and logic, or other cognitive
dimensions of rhetoric (Flower; Arthos; Oakley). Indeed, Mark Turner goes so
far as to suggest that ‘‘If Aristotle were alive today he would be studying this
[neuroscience] research and revising his work accordingly’’ (10).
3
See, for instance, Mooney and Kirshenbaum; Specter.
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In this article, we, a neuroscientist and a rhetoric-of-science scholar, argue
that the rhetoric of neuroscience and the neuroscience of rhetoric should be
intertwined. In other words, to work with neuroscience research findings one
should carefully analyze that work with a rhetorical as well as a scientific lens, paying attention to the rhetorical workings of accounts of cognitive neuroscience
research. Rhetoricians who would like to do work in neurorhetorics should understand how knowledge is established rhetorically and empirically in the field of
cognitive neuroscience, how to interpret scientific findings critically, and how to
avoid pitfalls of interpretation that could lead to misleading arguments about
rhetoric. Here we demonstrate the kinds of considerations rhetoric scholars should
use to examine neuroscience research. First, in order to highlight the complex
methodological choices that go into neuroscience research studies, we introduce
a contentious debate concerning common analytical practices for functional magnetic resonance imaging. To give rhetoric scholars a set of tools for understanding
these complex arguments, we highlight key topoi scientists use to negotiate methodological argument, such as accuracy, efficiency, and bias. Second, we examine
how neuroscience researchers define key concepts that may also be of interest to
rhetorical scholars, such as emotion, reason, and empathy, considering whether
those definitions square with traditional rhetorical concepts of pathos, logos,
and identification. In the third section, we consider how a single research article
in neuroscience is framed rhetorically, including how decisions about terminology,
research questions, and research subjects are rhetorical as well as empirical
decisions. In the final section we identify common tropes used in popular accounts
of neuroscience research findings. We offer guidelines in each section for
rhetorical scholars who would like to work with neuroscience findings, and
conclude by offering a set of suggested topics for future research that can
constitute what we call neurorhetorics.
Accuracy, Bias, and Efficiency: Methodological Topoi in
Human Brain Imaging
As scholars in the rhetoric of science have demonstrated, research findings are
shaped rhetorically to fit with scientists’ shared expectations. As Lawrence Prelli
has argued, scientists use ‘‘an identifiable, finite set of value-laden topics as they
produce and evaluate claims and counterclaims involving community problems
and concerns’’ (5). Some of these topics (or topoi) include accuracy (200), quantitative precision (195), and bias. The accuracy topos focuses on the degree to
which methods, procedures, and statistical calculations match what is being
measured, while the precision topos focuses attention on the degree of reliability
of the experimental method. Bias refers to the potential for the results to be
influenced by factors unrelated to the variable being tested.
In the case of neuroscience, researchers use these three topoi to argue for
methods that can usefully extend existing knowledge of the brain’s structures
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Jack and Appelbaum
and functions. One approach involves using case studies of individuals with brain
deficits to draw inferences about normal brain functions. A second approach
requires careful, statistical analysis of digitized data generated through imaging
technologies such as fMRI or positron emission tomography (PET) (Beaulieu
‘‘From Brainbank’’). As Michael E. Lynch explains, this data becomes visible
through various technologies that transform specimens (animal or human brains)
such that ‘‘[t]he squishy stuff of the brain becomes a subject of graphic comparison, sequential analysis, numerical measure, and statistical summary’’ (273). The
methods used to accurately extract data from squishy brains are rhetorically
negotiated through ongoing debates.
In order to understand these debates, a brief overview of neuroimaging research
techniques is important. Through recent advancements in fMRI capabilities,
researchers have been able to gain advanced understanding of the activity, structure, and function of the human brain on a fine spatial scale (Bandettini; Poldrack
et al.). In most instances, the primary objective in acquiring fMRI data is to infer
information about the brain activity that supports cognitive functions (such as
perception, memory, emotion) from local changes in blood oxygen content.
Increases in neural activity cause variations in blood oxygenation, which in turn
cause changes in magnetization that can be detected in an MRI scanner. While
these changes (called Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent or BOLD activity) offer
a somewhat indirect measure of neural activity, they are widely accepted as a close
proxy for the synaptic activity assumed to underlie neuronal communication,
brain function, and ultimately cognition (Logothetis and Wandell; Logothetis
et al.; Bandettini).4
In the hands of cognitive neuroscientists, an fMRI experiment is typically carried out by presenting a subject with a stimulus (such as an image, word problem,
or even scent) and a task that requires some kind of response (answering a simple
multiple choice question, choosing yes or no, etc.). Neuroscientists analyze the
resulting data with regard to specific experimental contrasts designed to isolate,
in a meaningful way, specified cognitive functions (e.g., subtraction between
remembered and forgotten items from a list). As a result of a single experimental
session, researchers can identify minute, specific regions of BOLD activation that
correlate with the task at hand in one individual’s brain.5 However, given the
inherent variability between individuals in brain anatomy, these activations can
not easily be generalized across individuals. The activation patterns may not land
consistently in the same place in different brains, nor can they be defined by any
4
Scholars hoping to work with fMRI research findings might wish to consult a textbook explaining basic
methodological procedures, such as Scott A. Huettel’s Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
5
While this is typical, not all fMRI experimental designs test hypotheses about the specialization of localized regions of the brain. For example, a large number of recent papers have focused on decoding the information that is represented across the whole brain at a particular point in time to a particular class of stimuli.
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‘‘This is Your Brain on Rhetoric’’
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set of standard anatomical co-ordinates (see Saxe et al. 2006). In order to draw
conclusions about brains in general, and not about single individuals, neuroscientists need to establish some basis of comparison across brains, even though they
differ in anatomy, size, and arrangement. This is where methodological arguments
come in, since neuroscientists must argue for the accuracy and efficiency of their
preferred techniques for addressing this challenge.
One approach involves acquiring information from separate ‘‘localizer’’ scans in
each subject. Neuroscience researchers Rebecca Saxe, Matthew Brett, and Nancy
Kanwisher argue such an approach can ‘‘constrain the identification of what is
the same brain region across individuals,’’ allowing researchers to more easily
‘‘combine data across subjects, studies, and labs’’ (1089). In rhetorical terms, these
researchers argue from the accuracy topos. By identifying regions that function
similarly across subjects, they claim that localizer scans allow for more accurate
representations of how the brain works. In addition, Saxe, Brett, and Kanwisher
argue from efficiency and bias, claiming that the functional regions-of-interest
(fROI) approach allows researchers to ‘‘specify in advance the region(s) in which
a hypothesis will be tested,’’ which ‘‘increases statistical power by reducing
the search space from tens of thousands of voxels to just a handful of ROIs’’
(1090). In contrast, the authors claim that whole-head comparisons will ‘‘produce
an explosion of multiple comparisons, requiring powerful corrections to control
false positives’’ (1090). In this way, they position the fROI approach as more accurate, more efficient, and less likely to lead to biased results (such as false positives).
By bias, they mean statistical bias (not personal bias), which can result simply
from taking multiple measurements of the whole head. Given the complexity of
the brain and the sheer number of neurons it contains, some voxels might indicate
brain activity that appears to correlate with the task in question, but that is actually
due to sheer chance. In debates about fMRI methodology, the accusation that one
technique or another might lead to more false positives serves as a way to position
that technique as less sound than the preferred technique.
Using functional localizers, or fROIs, represents a dramatic shift away from
more traditional analytical approaches that take into account all measurements
from the whole recorded volume, so-called whole-head measurements. Notably,
those who support a whole-head approach argue from the very same topoi as
those who argue for the fROI approach. For instance, Karl Friston is a vocal proponent of the whole-head approach, which he claims allows for greater accuracy
precisely because it does not pinpoint a region of interest a priori (Friston et al.;
Friston and Henson). Friston points out that the only way to guarantee one has
not overlooked potentially interesting activations is to test every voxel (the 3-D
unit of measurement in fMRI), a tactic that cannot be done by limiting analysis
to only those areas pre-defined in a localizer scan. Drawing on the efficiency topos,
Friston et al. argue that whole-brain approaches provide ‘‘increased statistical
efficiency,’’ making it possible to report results for all locations in the brain while
statistically accounting for the multiple tests performed across the whole volume
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Jack and Appelbaum
(Friston et al. 1086). In their defense of the whole-head approach, Friston et al.
also argue from the topos of bias, claiming that in the whole-head approach,
‘‘the test for one main effect cannot bias the test for other main effects or interactions’’ (Friston and Henson 1098).
As is the case with any scientific method, claims based on fMRI data rely on
chain of inferences that link the data to the psychological function or construct
of interest. Each step of this chain raises potential questions about the inferences
that can be garnered from the data. The nature and meaning of data are in turn
shaped by a series of methodological and conceptual choices made by scientists.
This ongoing debate regarding the appropriate tactics to use in fMRI data analysis
highlights the fact that neuroscientists have not yet established consensus on these
underlying assumptions. It is therefore up to the author to adequately communicate their methodology (Poldrack et al.) and to the reader to be versed in the
meaning, trends, and nuances of the methodologies employed.
For researchers hoping to discover new insights into rhetoric and communication from brain studies, it might be tempting to lump together a number of
research findings on a topic (such as desire or reason). Yet, each of those studies,
individually, might use a different technology (such as PET vs. fMRI), employ a
different methodology (such as fROI or whole-brain analysis), and use different
kinds of stimuli to evoke a given mental state (images, sounds, smells, etc.).
To draw conclusions from such a disparate group of studies requires significant
technical knowledge. While rhetoric scholars might find neuroscience methods
difficult to understand, they can start by paying attention to these topoi. By looking for terms such as ‘‘false positive,’’ ‘‘bias,’’ or ‘‘assumptions,’’ rhetoric scholars
can ferret out places where neuroscientists argue for their methods (or argue
against others).
Same Words, Different Meanings: Neurorhetorics of Reason
and Desire
Rhetorical scholars have long held a principal interest in reason, emotion, and how
they work together to achieve persuasion. These fundamental aspects of human
behavior have recently emerged into a rapidly growing branch of empirical neuroscience, called neuroeconomics. As the name implies, neuroeconomics employs
both neuroscience techniques and economic theory to test how desire, reason, and
choice are represented in the human mind, and, ultimately, why humans make the
choices that they do. Neuroeconomics may therefore hold a particularly promising
avenue for rhetorical scholars to explore questions that have traditionally been tied
to verbal appeals: how people are ultimately persuaded toward a particular course
of action.
Rhetoric scholars might be particularly interested in how terms like emotion
and reason (which evoke the ancient rhetorical proofs, pathos and logos) can be
studied experimentally in neuroeconomics. In this way, we might gain a deeper
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‘‘This is Your Brain on Rhetoric’’
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understanding of what parts of the brain are activated by emotional stimuli (such
as memories of events that signal threat) or by reasoning tasks (such as decision=
reward tasks involving the anticipation of gains and losses) (Labar; Carter et al.).
Nevertheless, neuroeconomics must be approached with care, since reason
and emotion can be difficult concepts to pin down. In this section, we examine
how researchers in neuroeconomics understand reason and emotion, how they
operationalize those qualities in experiments, and how those understandings do
or do not line up with how rhetoricians understand reason and emotion.
Of course, the word ‘‘neuroeconomics’’ itself suggests that the field draws on a
specific understanding of human action, one that frames such issues primarily in
economic terms. The assumption underlying much of this research is that humans
make decisions according to calculations of rewards, risk, and value, and that
these are represented in concrete and testable psychological and neural terms. If
the brain is responsible for carrying out all of the decisions that humans make,
understanding the physiological functions of the brain will help explain why
people make specific choices and why they often fail to make optimal decisions.
The interplay between such theory and neurobiology has led to productive
insights. Over the past several years, neuroscientists have begun to identify basic
computational and physiological functions that explain how reasoning works.
One common model is a compensatory one, where individuals make decisions
based on calculations of positive versus negative outcomes (Rangel). In this model,
decision makers must first form mental representations of the available options,
and then assign each option some value according to a common currency (such
as monetary gain). Next, the organism compares the values of different options
and chooses a specific course of action. After the action is completed, the organism
measures the benefit gained, and this information is fed back into the decision
mechanism to improve future choices.
A growing body of neuroscientific evidence supports this framework. For
example, researchers have found that some neurons in the brain adjust their firing
rate with the magnitude and probability of reward (Platt and Glimcher). Similarly,
researchers have shown that neurons in the monkey orbitofrontal cortex encode
the value of goods (Padoa-Schioppa and Assad), while others have suggested
that the frontal cortex neurons represent decision variables such as probability,
magnitude, and cost (Kennerley et al.). Collectively, this evidence suggests that
subjective value is represented in the nervous system, and that individuals make
choices by weighing these values. In this model, decisions are made primarily
through rational calculations of value, with the goal being for organisms to
maximize their reward (whether it be money, food, or something else).
But does this understanding of reason and emotion line up with the
assumptions rhetorical scholars might make about those concepts, which since
Aristotle’s Rhetoric, have been associated with logos and pathos? We might be
tempted to take these studies as outside proof that such concepts exist, or to
suggest the possibility of someday teasing out rhetorical appeals scientifically
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Jack and Appelbaum
(an idea being implemented in the field of neuromarketing). Yet, rhetorical
scholars should be careful to distinguish our own understandings of emotion
and logic from those supposed by neuroscientists. Daniel Gross argues that
Aristotle understands the passions as a sort a ‘‘political economy,’’ but
the emotions in this theory are decidedly public and rhetorical (6). Anger,
for Aristotle, ‘‘is a deeply social passion provoked by perceived, unjustified
slights,’’ presupposing ‘‘a public stage where social status is always insecure’’
(2). According to Gross, emotions that were at one time treated as ‘‘externalized forms of currency’’ have been folded into the brain, where they are now
understood as hardwired and biological, not political and rhetorical (8). While
the notion of an emotional economy might appear in both fields, then, the
nature of that economy varies significantly.
To determine how, exactly, neuroscientific understandings of reason and
logic might match up with rhetorical ones, we searched PubMed for articles
that contained the terms reason, emotion, and fMRI. Out of 83 articles, we
chose 20 that attempted to track individuals’ response to emotional stimuli
and=or reasoned judgments. For each article (see Appendix), we tracked
whether or not definitions were provided for the terms reason and emotion,
noted what definitions were given, and determined how those fuzzy concepts
were operationalized, or rendered scientifically measurable. The studies we
selected focused on such topics as gender differences in cognitive control of
emotion, the ‘‘neural correlates’’ of empathy, and the recruitment of specific
brain regions in inductive reasoning. Obviously, direct comparison of these
articles is impossible, and that is not our intent. Our aim was not to conduct
an exhaustive study of how scientists operationalize these concepts, but simply
to get a preliminary sense of how scientific understandings of reason and
emotion might square with rhetorical conceptions.
In many cases, researchers did not define what was meant by key terms such
as emotion or reason—only six of the articles in our sample did so. Perhaps
the writers assumed that their readers already shared a common, disciplinary
definition. For non-neuroscientists, then, this poses a challenge: what do the
authors mean by a term like emotion if it is not defined? Is there a standard
definition or understanding about this term as it is used in the field? And might
these definitions differ between sub-fields?
When definitions were given, they varied in format and content. For instance,
studies of reason usually offered provisional definitions, as in these four:
. reasoning ‘‘combines prior information with new beliefs or conclusions and
usually comes in the form of cognitive manipulations . . . that require working
memory’’ (Schaich Borg et al. 803)
. ‘‘a combination of cognitive processes that allows us to draw inferences from a
given set of information and reach conclusions that are not explicitly available,
providing new knowledge’’ (Canessa et al. 930)
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. ‘‘By ‘reasoning,’ we refer to relatively slow and deliberative processes involving
abstraction and at least some introspectively accessible components’’ (Greene
et al. 389)
. ‘‘Inductive reasoning is defined as the process of inferring a general rule (conclusion) by observation and analysis of specific instances (premises). Inductive
reasoning is used when generating hypotheses, formulating theories and discovering relationships, and is essential for scientific discovery.’’ (Lu et al. 74)
Anyone hoping to draw conclusions about reason as an element of rhetoric would
need to take into account these differing definitions, weighing whether or not they
are similar enough to warrant generalizations to rhetorical study. While rhetoricians may wish to associate reason with logos, none of these articles considers
how individuals are persuaded by logical arguments. In these studies, participants
are usually presented with logical puzzles or problems they must solve individually. It would be difficult for a rhetorical scholar to draw clear inferences about
logical persuasion from these studies, since they do not focus specifically on
how the brain responds to logical appeals.
In the studies mentioning empathy, one cited Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition of empathy—‘‘the ability to imagine oneself in another’s place and understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions’’—along with criteria from a
previous study (Krämer et al. 110). A second defined empathy as ‘‘the capacity to
share and appreciate others’ emotional and affective states in relation to oneself,’’
drawing on previous work by other researchers (Akitsuki and Decety 722). While
these definitions are similar, in the first one, empathy involves propelling oneself
outward into another’s ‘‘place,’’ while the second involves the opposite movement
of considering another’s emotions ‘‘in relation to oneself’’—the first is outerdirected, the second inner-directed.
For rhetoric scholars, the next step might be to consider how these definitions
compare to rhetorical ones. Both of the definitions cited here envisioned empathy
as an ability or capacity, something one presumably either has or does not have.
On the face of it, these definitions might square with Quintilian’s notion that the
most effective rhetors possess a capacity to feel the emotions they seek to evoke
(Quintilian 6.2.26). For Quintilian, though, empathy is a distinctly performative
skill, since orators who can ‘‘best conceive such images will have the greatest
power in moving the feelings’’ (6.2.29). In his formulation, empathy represents
a capacity to conjure for oneself the emotional states that move the feelings,
and to project those emotional states to an audience. Alternately, we might be
tempted to line up these fMRI studies with Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification, which suggests that ‘‘You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk
his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying
your ways with his’’ (Burke 55, his emphasis). In any case, both Quintilian and
Burke add a dimension to empathy that is lacking in the scientific accounts—
the capacity not only to put oneself in another’s shoes, but then to take on or
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Jack and Appelbaum
perform that person’s emotions, to ‘‘talk his language,’’ as Burke suggests, or to
paint an image that evokes those emotions, in Quintilian’s conception.
In order for an fMRI study of empathy to map neatly onto these definitions,
the study would have to operationalize this specific, rhetorical definition of
empathy—not just any study of empathy will necessarily apply. The choice of
stimulus would also be significant. In our sample, emotion was evoked using
images of neutral or emotional faces (Kompus et al.), faceless cartoons in
emotional or neutral situations (Krämer et al.), negative olfactory stimulation
(by means of rotten yeast) (Koch et al.), and angry or neutral voices reading
nonsense utterances (Sander et al.). Only in a few cases did studies focusing on
emotion involve subjects reading or listening to meaningful text—usually a few
lines only (Harris, Sheth, and Cohen; Ferstl and von Cramon; Schaich Borg
et al.). To date, no fMRI studies that we could find studied individuals’ neuronal
responses to explicitly rhetorical stimuli—there have been no ‘‘this is your brain
on Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech’’ studies (although perhaps it
is only a matter of time before such a study appears).
In the remaining articles, the terms emotion or reason were either taken as
given, or were implicitly defined. For instance, in Harris et al., a study of belief
and disbelief, participants were asked to rate phrases as ‘‘true’’ or ‘‘false’’ while
their brain activation was measured with fMRI. Because this is how the authors
chose to operationalize belief and disbelief, we can surmise that they defined
those values, implicitly, as being akin to truth and falsity (as opposed to some
other definition of belief emphasizing faith, trust, or confidence). While our survey was not exhaustive, it does suggest that rhetoricians seeking to incorporate
neuroscience findings must do considerable work to unpack the assumptions
underlying any single study, to put those in the context of other studies, and
then to compare neuroscience understandings with those common to our own
field. This preliminary survey suggests that we need to be careful not to assume
that terms like ‘‘reason’’ or ‘‘emotion’’ have stable definitions, that they are
defined in the same way across studies, or that they necessarily align with the
preferred rhetorical definitions.
Empathy and Neurological Difference
As we have shown, neuroscience research is replete with methodological and
terminological variability, so that writers of research articles must make careful choices about the terms and methods they describe. By drawing on rhetoric
of science studies, readers of these articles can examine research articles carefully, considering alternative interpretations and the broader cultural debates
in which such articles participate (Bazerman; Berkenkotter and Huckin;
Myers; Schryer; Swales). The example we consider here is an article titled
‘‘Neural Mechanisms of Empathy in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum
Disorder and Their Fathers,’’ published by Ellen Greimel et al. in a 2010 issue
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of NeuroImage. We chose this article because it deals with a topic of great
cultural interest at the moment, one suited to the emphasis of this special
issue on neurological difference: autism. Not only is autism a highly debated
topic in popular spheres, but, as a communicative disorder, it is sometimes
posited as a kind of touchstone against which rhetorical ability can be
measured (see, for instance, Oakley 102).
Formerly seen as a rare disorder, autism diagnosis rates have risen dramatically over the last twenty years, with current prevalence estimates at 1 in 110,
according to the Center for Disease Control. In the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual (DSM-IV) of the American Psychological Association, autistic disorder (sometimes called Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or ASD), is defined in
part by a list of impairments in communication and social interaction, combined with repetitive and stereotyped behavior.6 This increase in diagnosis has
led to many cultural developments: the rising influence of parent organizations arguing for biomedical treatment options; the increasing presence of
autistic characters in television and film;7 and the growing self-advocacy
movement among autistic individuals who seek a greater voice in shaping
directions for research and advocacy (O’Neil; Solomon; Sinclair). Scientific
articles about autism necessarily participate in this broader cultural milieu.
New findings about autism tend to be widely reported in the media, especially
when they suggest either anatomical or genetic differences that may explain
the behavioral criteria that distinguish autism.
One of these broader cultural trends is the position of ASD as a male disorder.
The first thing to notice from the title of Griemel’s study is that the study focused
on adolescents and their fathers. From the abstract, we learn that the study examined high-functioning boys with a diagnosis of ASD. While the writers do not
remark on their choice of male subjects, from a rhetorical standpoint these facts
situate the article within a broader cultural depiction of autism as a disorder
affecting males. Studies suggest that boys are four times more likely than girls
to receive a diagnosis of ASD, a fact that has led some researchers to posit
that autism is a disorder of the ‘‘extreme male brain’’ (Baron-Cohen The Essential
Difference; Baron-Cohen ‘‘The Extreme-Male-Brain’’). In this theory, ASD
simply represents an exaggeration of qualities taken to be typically male. In
Baron-Cohen’s theory, brains tend to be either ‘‘systematizing’’ or ‘‘empathizing.’’
6
At the time of writing, The American Psychiatric Association (APA) was considering proposed changes
to the criteria for autism for the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM-5. Previously,
there were separate diagnostic categories for Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder
(PDD), to variants of autism. According to the APA, the new category would help to simplify diagnosis,
since deciding where to draw the lines between sub-categories was akin to trying to ‘‘cleave meatloaf at
the joints.’’ See American Psychiatric Association..
7
Recent examples include Mozart and the Whale (2005), Adam (2009), and the HBO biopic Temple
Grandin (2010).
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Women tend to score higher on tests of empathizing, while men tend to score
higher on tests of systematizing. Nonetheless, Baron-Cohen insists that it is brains
that are male (systemizing) or female (empathizing), not necessarily the bodies in
which those brains exist.8 At any rate, individuals with ASD, according to
Baron-Cohen, get exceedingly high scores on systemizing tests. In fact, Greimel
et al. used Baron-Cohen’s survey of systematizing and empathizing tendencies,
called the ‘‘Autistic Quotient,’’ or AQ, to determine whether the fathers in the
study possessed autistic qualities.
Rhetoric researchers might be interested in examining this broader debate
about gender and autism and how it is inflected in a particular article. By focusing
on male subjects, Griemel et al. subtly appeal to the dominant depiction of the
disorder as fundamentally male—a depiction that also plays on the ever-popular
suggestion that male and female brains are fundamentally different (Condit).
This is not necessarily a shortcoming of Greimel et al.’s paper. After all, it is quite
commonplace to constrain one’s sample size by looking only at one sex. Recently,
though, some researchers have suggested that girls and women with ASD are
underdiagnosed, that the definition of the disorder itself overlooks how ASD
may present in females differently (Koenig and Tsatsanis). Scientific articles
like the one by Griemel et al. participate in this gendering of autism as a male
disorder, a process that draws on cultural discourses about masculinity,
technology, and geekiness.
By focusing on empathy, the authors of this study make a rhetorical, as well as a
scientific, choice, framing their article as an intervention into that particular
theory of autism’s etiology. Autism presents interesting questions for neuroscientists who seek to identify differences in brain structure and function between
people with and without autism. One of these proposed differences is a lack of
empathy, often called mindblindness, in individuals with autism (Baron-Cohen
Mindblindness; Happé). Accordingly, studies of empathy constitute a large proportion of autism research studies in psychology or neuroscience. Drawing on
Baron-Cohen’s work, Griemel et al. open by identifying ‘‘difficulties inferring their
own and other persons’ mental states’’ as among the core deficits of autism (1055).
While the writers present this as a statement of fact, there are competing theories,
such as the intense world hypothesis (Tager-Flusberg) or weak central coherence
theory (Frith and Happé) which are not mentioned in this article. Further, the
term empathy does not appear in the APA’s diagnostic criteria for autism; the closest terminology in that text refers to difficulty with social reciprocity. Empathy
may be an attractive concept to neuroscience researchers interested in autism
because it can be operationalized in an fMRI study via quizzes or images, and
8
Women can possess ‘‘male’’ brains, or men ‘‘female’’ brains, depending on how the individual scores on
a test of systemizing versus empathizing, a fact that calls into question the use of the terms male and female
to describe these brains in the first place.
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because it has been studied in non-autistic individuals. In contrast, social
reciprocity may seem fuzzier or more difficult to operationalize, and therefore
more difficult to justify in a research article.9 Rhetorical scholars should pay
careful attention to how and why scientists choose specific concepts to test, how
they are defined, and whether they may (or may not) apply to rhetorical concepts.
Rhetoric scholars should also pay close attention to the terminology used to
describe research findings. In their study, Greimel et al. draw on genetic explanations for autism, suggesting that ‘‘[s]imilarities in neurocognitive and behavioural
profiles [between individuals with ASD and their family members] strongly suggest a common biological substrate underlying these disturbances. Thus, exploring
the neural underpinnings of altered social cognition in persons with ASD and their
first-degree relatives might be a valuable approach to identifying familial influences on autistic pathology’’ (1055–1056). Here, the writers first suggest a ‘‘common biological substrate’’ and then replace that term, in the second sentence, with
‘‘neural underpinnings,’’ a move that concretizes their suggestion that there may
be identifiable neurological similarities between the boys with ASD and their
fathers. The writers suggest that their results indicate ‘‘that FG [fusiform gyrus]
dysfunction in the context of empathy constitutes a fundamental neurobiological
deviation in ASD’’ (1062). The transformation is subtle, but what are understood
to be neural correlates of empathy become located in the fusiform gyrus (FG), a
particular site in the brain, which then becomes (potentially) a concrete, physical
predictor of ASD. The term neural correlates is particularly slippery in this way—
while it suggests correlation, not causation, the noun phrase neural correlates
makes the phenomenon seem more concrete. To a non-scientist, especially, neural
correlates may easily be confused with ‘‘neural substrates’’ or something similarly
tangible. It is easy to overlook the fact that the researchers are mapping BOLD
activity, a proxy for neurological function, to behavior under particular experimental circumstances. Rhetoric scholars, then, should pay close attention to terms
such as neural correlates, neural substrates, and the like, being sure to tease out
what these terms mean and the potential suasory impact of such terms.
With regards to the methodology used, Asperger’s syndrome serves an interesting rhetorical and methodological function. It is also notable that the authors
studied adolescent boys diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, usually considered
a high-functioning variant of autism, but one that is currently listed as a separate
disorder in the DSM-IV. The writers posit that Asperger’s may serve as an
9
For instance, the ‘‘intense world’’ hypothesis suggests that ASD stems from a hyperactive, hypersensitive
brain, producing exaggerated (and confusing) reactions to sensory input (see Markram et al. 19). Autistic
individuals often protest the ‘‘lack of empathy’’ or ‘‘mind-blindness’’ characterization. One autistic person
writes: ‘‘sometimes doctors describe autistics as though they are emotionless automatons. This is far from
the truth, especially as many autistics have parents or close relatives who have bipolar disorder. You can’t
get more emotional than bipolar disorder. I feel things very deeply. A lack of empathy isn’t central to autism,
it’s just a feature of the social withdrawal.’’ See Alien Robot Girl.
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appropriate analogy to other forms of autism: ‘‘One way to overcome the barriers
associated with such complexity [in autistic disorders] is to examine qualitatively
similar but milder phenotypes in relatives of affected individuals’’ (1056). The
rhetorical figure at hand is the incrementum, which Jeanne Fahnestock suggests
orders subjects who presumably share some kind of attribute to differing degrees
(Rhetorical Figures in Science 95). The notion that individuals with classic autism
and with Asperger’s syndrome exist on a spectrum, or incrementum, implies
that they differ in degree of impairment, but have the same underlying biological
condition. It is this figure that grounds studies such as this one, which allow boys
with Asperger’s to stand in for all individuals with autism.
The notion of incrementum can help to explain the language that writers use to
describe autism and Asperger’s. While they portray Asperger’s as a ‘‘milder phenotype’’ of autism, they nevertheless described the test group as ‘‘affected individuals’’ (1062), while the control group was called ‘‘healthy adolescents’’ (1063)
or ‘‘healthy controls’’ (1063). Individuals with ASD were characterized as having
‘‘aberrant neural face and mirroring mechanisms’’ (1055, emphasis ours) and
‘‘socioemotional impairments’’ (1063, emphasis ours). This terminology, common
to scientific articles about autism, also constitutes a rhetorical choice among
available terms. By choosing this language, the writers position their work clearly
within a scientific conversation surrounding the deficits apparent in autism. A
different choice of language might signal a different approach. For instance,
individuals who argue for neurodiversity, or the notion that neurological differences are at least partially culturally produced, might use terms such as difference,
condition (as opposed to disorder), and acceptance rather than therapy or cure.
Meanwhile, parents who advocate biomedical treatments for autism tend to use
terms connoting disease and devastation, on the one hand, and cure or recovery,
on the other, to argue for their case. For rhetoric scholars, the point may not
be to weigh in on this debate, but to pay attention to the kinds of language used
to describe a neurological difference such as autism, and to the different meanings
they carry in different contexts.
The implications of any scientific article, which usually appear in the discussion
section, are key considerations. In scientific articles on autism, diagnosis and genetics tend to appear in discussion sections, serving as commonplaces to help writers address the so-what question. The upshot of Griemel et al.’s implications is
that autism might be corrected through medical intervention, particularly early
diagnosis and genetic identification. Griemel et al. suggest that ‘‘Illuminating aberrancies such as reduced activation of the amygdala and the FG in persons presenting with mild autistic traits might prove beneficial for the identification of
neurobiological endophenotypes of ASD and may provide future directions for
molecular genetic studies’’ (1063). These commonplaces are disputed in other
circles, such as in the neurodiversity movement, where they are interpreted as portending the possibility of fetal screening and selective abortion of fetuses identified
as ‘‘autistic.’’ Meanwhile, parents who write about autism often embrace
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early diagnosis and screening techniques, since they may help them to argue for
appropriate therapies and resources. For rhetoric scholars, then, it is key to consider how these topoi function as rhetorical choices, and how those topoi might
be interpreted in other contexts.
One might be inclined to conclude from Griemel et al.’s study that the
fusiform gyrus (FG) can verify the fundamentally human capacity for empathy,
or the lack thereof in autistic individuals, and hence rhetoric. As we mentioned
earlier, empathy underlies a number of rhetorical theories, including those of
Quintilian and Burke. Indeed, Dennis Lynch argues that ‘‘The concept and
practice of empathy insinuates itself into most modem rhetorical theories,
under one guise or another’’ (6). It might be tempting, then, to use the case
of autism as a kind of test case or touchstone against which ‘‘normal’’ human
rhetorical capacities might be measured. Using empathy as a marker of rhetorical potential might seem to exclude individuals with autism from human
rhetorical capacity on almost every level, a fact that can be ethically objectionable. A more responsible move, then, might be to question whether it is ethical
for rhetoricians to assume a lack of empathy in other humans, or to consider
whether rhetorical theories should be revised in order to better account for the
full range of human rhetorical capacities, including those with neurological
differences.
Any research article is situated both with relation to a scientific conversation
and a broader cultural one. In the case of neurological differences, these contexts
are increasingly convergent, in that non-scientists are gaining a voice in research
decisions about autism, bipolar disorder, depression, and the like. However, readers must be quite familiar with such debates, both within scientific communities
and outside of them, in order to understand the rhetorical choices, as well as
elisions, within a given article.
Rhetorical Considerations: Neuroscience Findings
in the Popular Media
Given the complexities of scientific texts, rhetoric scholars might be drawn to
popular texts about neuroscience, since they provide accessible overviews of
current findings. In general, though, popular science reports often repackage
scientific findings by drawing on topoi such as application or wonder (Fahnestock
‘‘Accommodating’’). In their study of popular news reports about neuroscience,
in particular, Erik Racine, Bar-Ilan Ofek, and Judy Illes, categorize claims as
falling into three types, which they call neuro-realism, neuro-essentialism, and
neuro-policy. Readers should be aware of these three commonplaces, how they
work on audiences, and how they might relate to the scientific reports themselves,
rather than taking them at face value. Moreover, readers might also look for these
tendencies in scientific articles, where they may appear in the discussion section as
a way to signal the importance of a given research study.
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As described by Racine, Ofek, and Illes, neuro-realism occurs when ‘‘coverage
of fMRI investigations can make a phenomenon uncritically real, objective or
effective in the eyes of the public’’ (160), or when reports invalidate or validate
our ordinary understanding of the world. We would suggest that neuro-realism
can occur in popularization of all kinds of neuroscience research, not just those
that report on fMRI research. Rhetorically, neuro-realism operates through
metaphors that work to spatially locate specific functions in the brain. One
example of neuro-realism is this headline from New Scientist: ‘‘Emotional speech
leaves ‘signature’ on the brain’’ (Thomson). In this study, scientists examined patterns of brain activation in 22 individuals who listened to a single sentence, read
with different emotional inflections. In the article, Thomson suggests that the
scientists observed ‘‘signatures,’’ a term that implies that the results in question
somehow left a mark on the brain, rather than interpreting them as momentary
patterns of activation. The usage reflects the underlying metaphor of the brain
as text, inscribed by sensory experiences. A correlate of this metaphor tends to
be the suggestion that scientists can therefore ‘‘read minds’’ in a popular sense,
as though scientists could literally read a transcript of someone’s thoughts rather
than interpret visual images or data. Such usage, along with references to regions of
the brain such as a ‘‘emotion center,’’ ‘‘neural architecture,’’ or ‘‘god spot,’’ also
involve spatial metaphors, which, like textual metaphors, seek to fix brain
functions in particular spaces.
The second tendency, neuro-essentialism, refers to ‘‘how fMRI research can be
depicted as equating subjectivity and personal identity to the brain’’ (160). The key
rhetorical figure for neuro-essentialism might be a double synechdoche, wherein
both the brain and the quality to be measured stand in for a complex of biological
and cultural factors. An example of might be this claim from a MSNBC report:
‘‘Two new brain-imaging studies describing the origins of empathy and how placebos work provide insights into the nature of pain, the mind-body connection
and what it means to be human’’ (Kane). The ‘‘brain’’ stands in for the complex
network of neurons, blood flow, bodily actions, and cognitive processes that might
actually make up something like pain or the ‘‘mind-body connection.’’ Once
the brain takes over for this complex, it can be given tasks like ‘‘handling love
and pain’’ or telling us ‘‘what it means to be human.’’ In this way, the brain represents the essence of human experiences (love, pain), or even of humanness itself.
Such reports often anthropomorphize the brain, making it an active agent, as in
the headline for the Kane article, ‘‘How your brain handles love and pain.’’
Finally, neuro-policy refers to ‘‘attempts to use fMRI results to promote political
and personal agendas’’ (Racine, Bar-Ilan, and Illes 161). Often, neuro-policy arguments rely on weak analogies that extend the initial research findings far beyond
their original contexts. For example, a recent report in Popular Science suggested
that a new study showing neural correlates of pain in 16 men undergoing oral
surgery held implications for animal rights: ‘‘applications of this technology for
fields beyond medicine, such as animal rights, may prove more transformative
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than any medical use. Using the fMRI on animals could quantify the pain levels of
veterinary and slaughter procedures, potentially changing the way we both heal
and kill animals’’ (Fox). Here, the writer extends the research findings beyond
their immediate context (research on humans undergoing oral surgery) to a very
different context—animals being treated by a veterinarian or slaughtered for food.
This is not to say that such an application might not be possible, or warranted, but
these kinds of statements tend to minimize the time, effort, and technological
innovation required for these applications. A weak analogy can also occur when
writers extend animal studies to humans, since the biological and social factors
influencing human cognition vary from, say, rats. Whether or not the comparison
is apt depends on the situation.
Given these tendencies in popular and scientific articles, researchers in rhetoric
should carefully question the interpretations writers give for neuroscience
findings. More generally, both popular and scientific texts take advantage of the
persuasiveness of visual images of the brain (McCabe and Castel; Johnson;
Beaulieu ‘‘Images’’; Weisberg et al.), sometimes leading audiences to grant greater
credibility to scientific claims than they might otherwise. These images, nearly
ubiquitous in popular reports, act as the warrant for the scientific claims, offering
what Ann Beaulieu calls ‘‘a concrete unit of scientific knowledge’’ in an attractive,
visual form (‘‘Images’’ 54). Rhetoricians seeking to rely on popularized accounts
of neuroscience need to carefully read such texts with a rhetorical lens, considering
how authors frame their research, what arguments they make, and what other
viewpoints might exist in the field.
Guidelines and Future Directions
Neuroscience research holds tantalizing possibilities for rhetorical scholarship;
however, there exists a deep divide in how rhetoricians and neuroscientists communicate. Paying attention to the fundamental differences in discourse between
these communities will help rhetoric scholars to work with neuroscience findings
in a responsible manner. To conclude, we offer here some guidelines for scholars
in rhetoric who plan to use neuroscience research in their work.
First, as we showed in the initial section, it is important to understand the
methodological assumptions and debates driving neuroscience research. While
neuroimaging technologies provide powerful tools, their interpretation is also
guided by complex, ongoing arguments about specific methodological practices.
In fact, untangling how methodological assumptions influence neuroscientific
analyses sometimes reveals that these assumptions may predetermine results to
some extent. By focusing on the topoi of accuracy, precision, and bias, we showed
how neuroscientists negotiate the empirical parameters out of which claims about
the brain can be made. Since these parameters are not yet settled, it is important
for outside readers to be careful about applying scientific results to new contexts,
such as rhetorical ones.
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Second, rhetoric scholars should carefully compare their own terms and
definitions with those used in neuroscience fields. As we showed in our second
section, the neuroscience concepts of emotion, reason, and empathy might seem
to match rhetorical concepts of pathos, logos, and identification; yet this assumption would be false in many cases. In order to draw conclusions from neuroscientific studies, rhetoric scholars will either have to make judgments about what
qualifies as a close enough operationalization of a given concept or work directly
with neuroscientists to operationalize our own concepts. Rhetoric scholars might
work with neuroscientists to empirically test rhetorical effectiveness of, say,
campaign speeches. However, both of us are skeptical of this approach, which
could easily fall into the traps of neurorealism or neuroessentialism.
Third, scholars should draw on the insights of rhetoric of science scholarship
when examining any particular scientific article. Rather than simply extracting
the findings from an abstract, we should be careful to consider the framework
the writers create for their data, asking what other scientific frameworks or explanations might be possible, and how those frameworks relate to broader debates.
Such an approach requires at least some familiarity with the conceptual or
methodological debates going on within a given field of study. For neuroscientists,
evaluating a single article depends on the ability to fit that article within a body of
converging evidence. For scholars doing interdisciplinary work, this poses a significant challenge. Ideally, collaborative work with neuroscience researchers could
provide an avenue for rhetoric scholars to use neuroscience insights responsibly
in their own work. In lieu of a direct collaboration, rhetoric scholars will need
to do significant outside reading in order to situate a given research finding within
its discourse community.
Finally, rhetoric scholars should be wary of repeating (or making their own)
claims that fall into the trap of neurorealism, neuroessentialism, or neuropolicy.
While we locate these pitfalls in popular accounts, they may also be tendencies
in the cross-disciplinary endeavor we are calling neurorhetorics. For instance,
we might be apt to argue that a given rhetorical concept (pathos, ethos, identification, or what have you) can be proven to exist due to neuroimaging studies—an
instance of neurorealism. Or, we might lean toward neuroessentialism by claiming
that brain scan studies attest to different types of brains—the ‘‘pathos-driven
brain’’ or the ‘‘logos-driven brain’’—based on how individuals respond to
emotional versus logical kinds of arguments. The third pitfall, neuropolicy,
may be especially likely to ensnare scholars interested in rhetorical production.
Suggesting that brain studies offer proof of the effectiveness of a specific method
of instruction will often fall into the trap of neuropolicy. Clearly, the classroom is a
much more complex place than can be simulated inside an fMRI machine, so
we should be wary of weak analogies that seek to offer scientific proof of the
effectiveness of any given pedagogical method.
Given these caveats, we return to our initial claim that neurorhetorics research
should involve both careful rhetorical analysis of neuroscience arguments as well
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as consideration of how neuroscience can inform rhetorical theory and practice.
Accordingly, we suggest the following directions for future research.
We may consider how scientific research about the brain is used to support
arguments in all kinds of venues (political, legal, literary, medical, and so on).
In this issue, for instance, Katie Guest Pryal, John P. Jackson, and Jenell Johnson
each examine the rhetorical controversies that often surround attempts to define
(or exclude) individuals on the basis of cognitive functioning or difference.
Rhetoricians might also consider why neuroscientific explanations and images
hold particular sway over audiences, an issue neuroscientists have themselves been
debating. In one recent study, researchers David McCabe and Alan Castel found
that people ranked descriptions of brain research as more credible if it included
images of brain scans. In another study, researchers found that even including
the words ‘‘brain scans indicate’’ increased readers’ confidence in explanations
of brain phenomena, leading researchers to question the ‘‘seductive allure’’
that neuroscience seems to hold (Weisberg et al.). Rhetoricians might help us to
understand why neuroscience findings seem to hold this allure, and to what effect.
While scholars have shown that popular news accounts tend to overemphasize
or decontextualize neuroscience research findings (McCabe and Castel; Weisberg
et al.), we know of no studies that question whether neuroscience research articles
themselves reflect popular science preoccupations. In other words, do publication
and funding pressures encourage authors to frame their research in ways that
will lead to attractive headlines? A related project might consider how rhetorical
theory can account for the persuasiveness of neuroimaging and neuroscience
findings noted by McCabe and Castel and Weisberg et al.
Applications of neuroscience research to legal contexts should also interest
rhetorical scholars, since forensics have always been part of rhetoric’s domain.
Brain data are already being offered as evidence in trials, but we contend that such
data must be interpreted by expert witnesses.10 For rhetoric scholars this means
that expert ethos becomes a key issue—who is trusted to make these judgments
in court (and in other venues)? How do legal and scientific arguments coincide
in these cases? The legal venue is just one of many in which neurological difference
is produced, identified, and realized in specific brains. As the articles in this issue
demonstrate, the production of neurological difference never happens exclusively
within scientific realms, but it nonetheless draws on neuroscience evidence for
its power.
Finally, we hope more researchers in both rhetoric and neuroscience will
undertake collaborative, interdisciplinary research. As we have shown, these two
fields do have much to say to one another. While great differences in research
methodologies, foundational concepts, discourse practices, and publication venues
10
See Feigenson for a discussion of the admissibility and persuasiveness of fMRI data as courtroom
evidence.
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exist between these fields, we hope that the two-sided approach proposed in this
article can help rhetoric scholars to use neuroscience insights in a responsible
manner to yield productive insights into rhetoric while minimizing potential
pitfalls of interdisciplinary work. We have highlighted a number of strategies
here, such as carefully considering neuroscience research methods, comparing
neuroscientific with rhetorical understandings of similar terms, or grounding
any borrowings in a broader understanding of rhetorical and scientific debates
surrounding neurological difference. Given the great interest and importance of
these disciplines we encourage future research projects that have the potential
to produce further productive interchanges between these fields.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Scott Huettel, Nico Boehler, Debra Hawhee, and Katie Rose
Guest Pryal for their valuable comments on this article.
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Yes
No
No
No
Krämer, Ulrike, et al.
Mak, Amanda K.Y., et al.
Harris, Sam, et al.
Ferstl, Evelyn C. and
No
Yes
Koch K., et al.
Schaich Borg J., et al.
D. Yves von Cramon.
No
(y=n)
Definition
Kompus, Kristiina, et al.
Article
Appendix
created
(3 of them)
‘socially appropriate’ behavior.
memory’’ (803).
cognitive manipulations . . . that require working
conclusions and usually comes in the form of
combines prior information with new beliefs or
not incline us toward any specific feeling and
valenced nor immediate insofar as reasoning need
of negative affect. In contrast, ‘reason’ is neither
conscious. We will focus on emotions in the form
valenced reactions that may or may not be
‘‘For our purposes, ‘emotions’ are immediate
n=a
n=a
with falsity
Implicit – belief equated with truth, disbelief equated
(noncolorful)’’ language.
Presented scenarios to subjects using both ‘‘dramatic (colorful)’’ and ‘‘muted
method of mood induction’’ (2745).
rotten yeast)’’ (2745), which is ‘‘an effective standardized and validated
‘‘Induced negative emotion by means of negative olfactory stimulation (with
inconsistencies concerning emotional, temporal or spatial information
Twenty participants read two sentence stories half of which contained
to be ‘‘true’’ (belief), ‘‘false’’ (disbelief), or ‘‘undecidable’’ (uncertainty)
Used fMRI to study the brains of 14 adults while they judged written statements
extra pictures from popular media
Used ‘‘emotional pictures’’ from the International Emotion Picture System plus
of ‘‘emotionally charged’’ vs. ‘‘emotionally neutral’’ situations that they had
(p. 110) þ Decety et al.’s list of components
Defines ‘‘emotion regulation’’ as dealing with
Chose one of Decety et al.’s components to operationalize using faceless cartoons
(fear or anger)
Subjects presented with neutral or emotional faces; emotional faces were negative
How operationalized?
Encyclopedia Britannica definition of empathy
n=a
How defined?
Rhetoric Society Quarterly 2010.40:411-437. Downloaded from www.tandfonline.com
434
Jack and Appelbaum
Yes
Yes
No
No
Sander, David, et al.
Canessa, Nichola, et al.
Greene, Joshua D., et al.
Reuter, M., et al.
Ochsner, Kevin N., et al.
‘‘Reflecting Upon Feelings’’
No
No
Azim, Eiman, et al.
Showed cartoons that had previously been rated ‘‘funny’’ or ‘‘unfunny’’
studies have shown to elicit a significant content effect’’ (930).
n=a
n=a
(389).
least some introspectively accessible components’’
deliberative processes involving abstraction and at
‘‘By ‘‘reasoning,’’ we refer to relatively slow and
to problem solving and decision making’’ (930).
aspect of mental activity, from text comprehension
nucleus of thinking and is essential in almost every
each image (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral).’’ (1748)
(Continued )
asked participants to judge the emotional response of the central character in
modified this paradigm through the inclusion of a third condition, which
the image had been taken (indoors, outdoors, or not sure). The present study
response to each photo (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral), or to judge whether
images and for each block were asked to judge either their own emotional
‘‘In this task, participants were presented with a series of blocks of photographic
subjects or pictures of couples in an intimate situation.’’ (464)
threat, or disasters; erotic pictures contained either pictures of single naked
excrement; fear-inducing pictures included scenes of animal threat, human
unusual food, disgusting animals, poor hygiene, and body products such as
inducing, and affectively neutral content. E.g. The disgusting pictures included
‘‘Subjects viewed pictures with sadomasochistic, erotic, disgusting, fear-
personal) based on scenarios validated in an earlier study by Greene et al.
Subjects were asked to make various kinds of moral judgements (impersonal and
solving two versions of the Wason selection task, which previous behavioral
reach conclusions that are not explicitly available,
providing new knowledge. Reasoning is the central
with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects were
inferences from a given set of information and
‘‘In the present study, the effect of content on brain activation was investigated
prosody.
Voices – subjects listened to meaningless utterances read in angry vs. neutral
cognitive processes that allows us to draw
‘‘Reasoning can be defined as a combination of
affective cues.
No, but emphasis here is on decoding=interpreting
(humor)
Rhetoric Society Quarterly 2010.40:411-437. Downloaded from www.tandfonline.com
‘‘This is Your Brain on Rhetoric’’
435
rating period (scale from 1–4; 4 seconds) and then the word ‘relax’ (4
seconds). . . . Following presentation of each picture, participants were
prompted to answer the question ‘How negative do you feel?’ on a scale from 1
to 4 (where 1 was labeled ‘weak’ and 4 was labeled ‘strong’). (147)
emotions or those of another individual, at a
variety of time points in the emotion generation
process (Gross, 2007). Because emotion regulation
depicted from a stimulus data base of 40 female and 40 male non-professional
(happiness (smiling and laughing), surprise, enjoying, fear, anger, sadness, and
actors displaying each of eight different emotional facial expressions
expressions (see Fig. 4) was applied for the fMRI study. The stimuli were
n=a
reactivity.’’
effects of regulation as much as the effects of ‘pure’
emotional response can be characterized by the
‘‘A set of emotional videos and video screen captures showing different facial
instruction was look (non-regulation instruction; 8 seconds) followed by a
Emotion regulation strategies can target one’s own
Herrmann.
No
Trautmann, Sina Alexa,
instruction was decrease (regulation instruction), negative or neutral if
several components of an emotional response.
is an ongoing process, the overall trajectory of an
screen (‘decrease’ or ‘look’; 4 seconds), a picture was presented (negative if
in the magnitude, duration, or quality of one or
‘‘At the start of each trial, an instruction word was presented in the middle of the
screen’’ (1217).
during which participants were instructed simply to view the stimulus on the
Each trial began with a 4-sec presentation of a negative or neutral photo,
conscious or unconscious, and can involve changes
‘‘Emotion regulation can be deliberate or habitual,
without trying to alter them. On ‘‘Reappraise trials,’’ participants were asked
to interpret photos so that they no longer felt negative in response to them . . . .
themselves respond emotionally to each photo by being aware of their feelings
(1215)
‘‘We employed two conditions: On ‘‘Attend trials,’’ participants were asked to let
How operationalized?
experience has been termed ‘‘reappraisal.’’ ’’
Maybe? ‘‘The cognitive transformation of emotional
How defined?
Thorsten Fehr, and Manfred
Sort of
(y=n)
Definition
McRae, Kateri, et al.
‘‘Rethinking Feelings’’
Ochsner, Kevin N., et al.
Article
Appendix Continued
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Jack and Appelbaum
Lu, Shengfu, et al.
Decety.
Akitsuki, Yuko, and Jean
Yes
Yes
expressions were used.’’ (111)
accident or an individual whose pain was inflicted on purpose by another
person. A series of 144 stimuli were created and validated for this study.
Validation of the material was conducted with a group of 222 participants
(110, females) who were shown these dynamic stimuli and asked to estimate
how painful these situations were and whether they believed that the pain was
caused intentionally (Estabrook, 2007). Each animation consisted of three
digital color pictures, which were edited to the same size (600 480 pixels).
others emotional and affective states in relation to
oneself (Decety, 2007; Goubert et al., 2009; Jackson
et al., 2005). Empathy may be regarded as a
proximate factor motivating prosocial behaviors
and is crucial in the development of moral
reasoning (Decety and Meyer, 2008). (722)
three numbers located at three different positions may constitute a calculation
rule, i.e., an equation like Z ¼ X þY. Figure 2 gave an example of the inductive
reasoning task, which was assembled with three reverse triangles as mentioned
above’’ (75).
(premises). Inductive reasoning is used when
generating hypotheses, formulating theories and
discovering relationships, and is essential for
scientific discovery.’’ (74)
The basal element of the task was a reverse triangle as shown in Figure 1. The
observation and analysis of specific instances
‘‘The experimental tasks were adapted from a kind of intelligence test problems.
of painful and non-painful everyday situations’’ (723).
1000 ms respectively. These animated stimuli contained scenes of various types
inferring a general rule (conclusion) by
‘‘Inductive reasoning is defined as the process of
these situations involved either an individual whose pain was caused by
empathy, i.e., the capacity to share and appreciate
The durations of the first, second and third pictures were 1000 ms, 400 ms and
hands and feet depicting painful and non-painful situations. Furthermore,
mechanisms that underpin the experience of
‘‘The task consisted of the successive presentation of animated visual images of
window to investigate the neurophysiological
The perception of pain in others can be used as a
differences) displaying positive (happiness), negative (disgust), and neutral
emotional face stimuli (N ¼ 40; see above for detailed explanation of gender
For the purposes of the present study, only female dynamic and static
who you really like and give him a smile because you are happy to see him’’).
container’’ or happy: ‘‘imagine you meet someone unexpectedly on the street
home after two weeks of vacation but you forgot to take out the biowaste
triggered by a mood induction strategy (e.g., for disgust: ‘‘imagine, you come
disgust) and neutral expressions . . . . Emotional expressions of actresses were
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437